Re: Thinking about Delegating Decisions about Policy
Hi!
Thanks for sending this out Ian, part of this matches exactly what I've
been thinking for a long time, and the reason for my continued public
opposition and deep dissatisfaction with the tech-ctte as a body. I've
mentioned in the past [P] I'd put my thoughts in a more structured form,
but I always find this topic to be too exhausting and demotivating.
[P] <https://lists.debian.org/debian-policy/2018/08/msg00083.html>
On Mon, 2019-05-13 at 15:28:11 +0100, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Rather than see the TC's role enhanced, I would like to abolish it and
> replace it with something completely different.
Full ack! And like Ian, I pretty much have a problem with the structure
and the body, not its members!
Some of the problems I see myself which I've probably covered in the
past are:
* It has multiple conflicting roles (arbiter of disputes, mediator
of conflicts, advice giver, etc.), so there's always the worry that
something brought forward might be morphed/redirected/switched into
one of the other powers, which can bring unanticipated power
dynamics (f.ex. I don't think mediation can work well or at all when
the mediating party has also the power to adjudicate).
- If it was just an advisory board of elders/oracles or similar,
with no powers of authority, besides the ones coming from knowledge,
experience, track record, etc., it would seem perfectly fine for
any party, including, say the policy editors, to request advice on
contentious or uncertain issues from that advisory board, because
it would be just another input to consider when doing the actual
decision.
- If it was a social-ctte (not arbiters but mediators or resolvers
of conflict, w/o authority) to deal with interpersonal conflicts,
that would also seem fine, and my take is that the different
parties might be more open to be mediated this way.
* It has the power to impose final decisions into others:
- While not being involved (as a body) in the design nor the
implementation, nor long-term maintenance, nor any consequence
and fallout from those, which seems completely unfair within the
confines of a volunteer project.
- Which also seems like a way to sidestep one of the core tenets of
the project ("volunteers cannot be forced to do anything"), which
might force them to do things they otherwise would not do, and
giving them pretty much the options of complying or stepping down.
* When conflicts are brought up, in most cases they are at a point
where the positions of the opposing factions/parties are so hardened,
and/or communication has broken down so badly, that a decision will
just be a win/lose scenario, which further destroys/erodes the social
fabric of the project, bringing with it possibly rancour and hard
to repair relationships between members in the project.
* Reaching good decisions or deciding at all is important, but how
we reach them is IMO as important, or more (the ends do not justify
the means):
- Forced decisions coming out of the tech-ctte, by way of wielding
authority instead of convincing arguments and wide adoption, means
they are way less legitimate than ones that would have been reached
by (rough) consensus, or incremental adoption.
* It still has the very unfair power imbalance I pointed out some years
ago, about a GR requiring a super-majority to override its decisions.
* This is a body composed of members that come and go, these might have
wide experience in Debian in general (although not necessarily) or
might had expertise in specific fields. The problem is that this body
gets unbounded topic issues about anything. You cannot expect anyone
w/ no prior experience to have "taste" or "intuition" about things
they have not experienced/practiced for a long time. This is not,
say, a java-ctte composed of Java experts.
* It is a self-selected body, where things like being uncomfortable
with or not being able to work with other specific members, might
bias the selection process, while this body is supposed to serve
the project interests at large and not the individual body members'.
(And to be clear having a body with members that cannot or do not
enjoy working together would be pretty terrible, but given the purpose
of the body, having that limit its composition seems pretty bad too.)
* Most decisions are not just technical decisions, in many/most cases
the decisions have answers that are all correct, but it just depends
on the weight of specific trade-offs. How those are weighted depends
heavily on each individual. This also seems rather unfair, as it's
taking the natural and expected biases of a small set of people in
the project and forcing them into the entire project.
Thanks,
Guillem
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